


Running in Place

by Quinntessentially



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: (but they still end up together), 5+1 Things, Fleeing Danger (with your crush whom you don't have a crush on), Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Tenderness, an attempt at comedy, which looks different for rincewind than for other people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27474430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially
Summary: Rincewind knows the only kind of luck he gets is the bad kind, which is fine when it's just him and whatever wizzard-eating monster he stumbles into. It gets more complicated when Ponder becomes the good thing in his life, because good things don't happen to Rincewind.Or: Five missed connections and one (hopefully) forever.
Relationships: Rincewind/Ponder Stibbons
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	Running in Place

**Author's Note:**

> kind of astonishing that i haven't written anything for discworld until now!! anyway yes i think the title is hilarious but it's also thematically appropriate so hah

Rincewind may be a professor now, but he’s always going to harbor a soft spot for the library. The nooks, the crannies, the way it’s organized in lots of straight lines for sprinting down in case of emergency — it’s certainly preferable to the wizard’s mess hall, which tends towards boisterous at best and filled with fireballs at worst. No fireballs in the library, by force of the Librarian’s ferocious gaze and unsurprisingly strong grip.

The library does have downsides, though, like the mysterious and terrible creatures that occasionally wander in from L-space.

Creatures like the six-foot-tall and uncomfortably toothy being that Rincewind finds himself faced with. The thing makes eye-contact with him and Rincewind can swear that it grins at him with its mouth full of slavering tongue and teeth. Its skin looks… drippy. And acid green.

One benefit of things like this happening to Rincewind regularly is that his fight-or-flight instinct is now just a flight instinct. There’s a possibility that someone’s around who can help. A yell bubbles in Rincewind’s throat, but another terrible part about the library is that there’s _no yelling allowed_.

“Aaaaaaaah,” Rincewind screams quietly. He feels much better. 

He can hear the thing start to pant as it chases after him. The library’s atrium is far away, but it’s just a straight line. He can do straight lines, provided there’s no crocodiles or mountains in the way.

Rincewind casts a hurried glance behind him, and the monster isn’t on his heels yet, but it will be soon.

That’s the horrible, horrible moment that he collides with something with a _thud_. 

“Ow!” says the thing, adjusting its spectacles. “Why are you ru— oh my.”

Rincewind doesn’t reply, just fumbles until his feet aren’t so tangled in Ponder’s robe — because it is Ponder, of course, who else would be in the library during meal time — and then the thing is almost upon them.

Ponder tugs him to the side with a fist on his sleeve. “Maybe it’ll just continue onwards?” he asks encouragingly.

“Don’t! Now you’ve jinxed it,” Rincewind hisses, but then the creature goes galumphing past, its head swinging from side to side. It gives the impression of having both five and six legs, despite having four legs. A loud crash reverberates through the whole library a few seconds later. Ponder’s brow furrows and he leans to peek his head around the shelf they’re hiding behind.

Rincewind waits in terror for Ponder’s inevitable demise, but Ponder peers for a second then retracts his neck with his head (and hat) fully intact. Then there's a loud screech, and Rincewind knows that that’s the Librarian. More screeching for a second, and the creature’s pants. Ponder goes to check again and Rincewind kicks him on the calf until he stops. Then, finally, a loud _whoomf_ like a blanket being thrown, and a burst of piercing lavender light. 

The library is quiet again. Rincewind would thank a god if he hadn’t sworn off it a couple years ago when it became evident that the gods were just messing him about.

“That was a close one,” Ponder exclaims. Now that he’s (presumably) not in mortal danger, it’s obvious that there are bags under his eyes. His hat’s looking rather bedraggled. More bedraggled than usual even for Ponder, who has been known to use his hat as a large and pointy coaster when he’s not paying attention. “I must get back to HEX, though — it keeps trying to infinitely make subarrays from its arrays, and the whole thing gets rather quantum.” He rubs a hand down his face, and the smile he puts on is wan. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“Who can say?” says Rincewind. And then impulsively to Ponder’s retreating back, “Get some sleep, would you?”

“Maybe later,” Ponder says, waving a dismissive hand. “Lots to do.”

Rincewind shrugs internally. He still has to get the book he came for1.

Probably there won’t be any more large monsters. And if there are, then the library’s still set up in nice straight lines.

* * *

Ankh-Morpork is, for all intents and purposes, the best place for a wizard, largely because of its ability to absorb all the spare magic the University radiates, and its large supplies of beer.

It’s also the best place for a pea soup fog the likes of which the Disc has never seen. All Rincewind wants is a drink so he can get some decent sleep. There’s a dozen pubs within walking distance of the university (though only two serve anything approaching good liquor), and he can’t find any of them. He can barely even make out the facades of the buildings beside him, despite the fact that they can’t be more than a couple meters off. 

The luggage’s many feet are skittering on the cobblestones as he walks. Rincewind knows he’s not getting anywhere except _farther_ , but he’s done enough running to acknowledge that sometimes _farther_ is a great place to be. 

Then, at complete random — Rincewind is entertaining the hope that luck has nothing to do with it — he hits a building with no sign except about forty saying “beer” in different languages. Or, at least, Rincewind assumes they all say “beer”; he can only read about thirteen of them.

The chill outside is sinking through his wizard robes. He ducks in the door.

The clientele is as mixed as the signs outside suggest, but it’s also heated inside, no fighting is actively going on, and there’s a bar with someone standing behind it polishing glasses. As inconspicuously as possible, Rincewind walks to the bar. The bartender doesn’t look up.

Rincewind coughs to get her attention, then coughs a couple more times when she doesn’t look up. 

“What can I get you?” the barkeep asks. Her Morporkian is so strongly accented of Ankh-Morpork that it comes around again to sounding foreign. 

“Something that will get me drunk,” Rincewind says. “Or failing that, a pint.”

“Jimkin Bearhugger’s it is. Prices are on the sign up there,” says the barkeep, pointing. “But don’t expect too many of ‘em. We keep it quiet around here. And keep your… pet… in check.”

Rincewind nods, counts out the coins and pushes them over. “The Luggage is very well behaved.” The barkeep fixes him with a steely glare, but Rincewind has spent a lifetime perfecting the look of someone who will cause no trouble, no siree, move along to the next wizzard. 

A quiet bar in Ankh-Morpork sounds like an oxymoron, but nobody here seems to be spoiling for a fight, table of dwarves singing drinking songs about glorious victory (to steal the enemy’s gold) excluded.

One tumbler of Jimkin Bearhugger’s won’t get Rincewind _very_ drunk, but it’ll get him _mostly_ drunk. Although if he has to get back to the university in this fog, perhaps he should avoid getting any amount of drunk. Well, tipsy couldn’t hurt, surely. He takes a sip and winces. Somebody’s got to tell Jimkin that turpentine should not be involved in his ideal flavor profile.

Rincewind takes another sip and narrowly avoids spitting it out, because Ponder’s just stepped through the door. It’s surprising enough to see him leaving the university, but Rincewind wasn’t aware that Ponder knew what alcohol was. Or why people might be drinking it on Tuesday nights.

“Oh!” says Ponder. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

Rincewind swallows hastily. “Yeah, same here.”

Ponder pushes himself into the stool next to Rincewind, and flags the bartender. She greets him by name, asks if he wants his regular.

“You come here a lot?” Rincewind says.

“Sometimes it’s nice to not have to explain what I’m doing every ten seconds,” Ponder says with a touch of unexpected dryness. 

“No danger of that here,” Rincewind says. “You could explain everything you’re working on twice and I still wouldn’t understand.”

Ponder twists his lips briefly, but his expression smoothes out. “So what have you been up to?”

“Probably less than you,” says Rincewind. “A lot of categorizing rocks and fossils. Figuring out where dirt is from. Nice and boring. You?”

“Keeping the university running as usual.” Ponder laughs, brief and through his nose. “I’d rather not talk about work, though, if it’s all the same to you.”

Rincewind shrugs. “I’ve been learning Low Borogravian lately. They’ve just got a newspaper running out in the capital there, and it’s not like I have much else to do.”

“Oh?” Ponder tilts his head like he’s actually interested, although Rincewind knows that he probably isn’t. “Is it much different from High Borogravian?”

“Sort of. All the words are the same but the case system is different, and all the verbs conjugate differently. And the word order is different.”

Then Ponder asks another intelligent question, and that really sets Rincewind off. The conversation boulders ahead until he’s gesturing broadly while trying to explain the Überwaldean grammatical moods2. Ponder’s nearly nodding off, and Rincewind thinks his words are slurring, although he’s only had half the glass and then maybe three more glasses. The Luggage has begun at some unknown point to snore contentedly (albeit loudly) at his feet. 

“You two should go,” says the barkeep, not unkindly. “We’re closing in twenty.”

“Whuzzat?” Ponder mutters, and Rincewind laughs inanely. 

“She says we should go.”

“Fine then,” says Ponder. He heaves himself off the barstool. “Good talking to you.” Rincewind thinks he’s making an attempt at a wave good-bye, but it’s really more of a gentle flail.

“We’re going to the same place,” Rincewind points out. He’s also on his feet now, although his feet seem to be swaying under him.

“Pish and —” Ponder ponders a moment “—and tish? Something like that. Let’s go.” And then, with more intrepid spirit than Rincewing has seen in anyone since Twoflower, he hoists the sleeping Luggage into his arms and marches out the door. Rincewind trails behind, feeling slightly like he’s oozing alcohol.

Ponder apparently knows the way to the university, which is good because Rincewind doesn’t think he knows the way to the door outside.

They make it to the university, and Ponder deposits the Luggage on the floor outside Rincewind’s quarters. “Goodbye,” says he, very polite. Rincewind tips his wizard hat rather too far and it almost falls off his head. There’s something he feels like he ought to say, but he doesn’t know what it could be. Ponder retreats. Slightly more melancholy, Rincewind drags the Luggage in and then regretfully pours himself into bed.

* * *

It’s like Ponder disappears after that. Not that Rincewind’s paying attention or anything. It’s just that normally, when Rincewind joined the rest of the faculty at the rare mealtimes he attended, Ponder had been cheerfully complaining about all the minutiae it takes for him to keep Unseen University functioning. He’s not there anymore, nor is he ever in the library when Rincewind happens by. Nor is he in any of the communal places where he and Rincewind often see each other, such as the hallway that traps people who try to use it until they make eye contact with somebody, or the ramparts that function as the only way to get between the staff bathrooms and the usable classrooms. He figures he would have heard about it if something happened to Ponder, but then again, maybe not. He doesn’t get out with many people except the Librarian these days. 

It makes Rincewind want to go and run some place, but then he wouldn’t be any closer to Ponder at all.

...If he can’t run from something, then that only leaves Rincewind’s least favorite option: run _at_ something. Preferably armed with something good for bludgeoning, but that seems inappropriate in this case.

So bearing nothing but his hat and his heaviest textbook (old habits die hard) Rincewind tiptoes across the plaza flagstones to the tower where Ponder does his paperwork. He’s perhaps being a bit too surreptitious, what with it being broad daylight, but it does make him feel better. It also makes him progress much more slowly, another strong bonus. 

Inevitably, though, he reaches the door to Ponder’s study. There’s no sign on the door threatening doom, no loud banging or sword fighting noises from inside. Although there is a troll wielding a club carved into it, which makes Rincewind a bit nervous on principle. 

Rincewind cracks open the door. Ponder’s scritching some writing into the top of a large stack of papers. “Who is it?” he says.

“It’s Rincewind.” Rincewind stays outside the room just in case this revelation inspires any jumping-up, wand-flourishing, or other such activities likely to result in bodily injury. 

None of these happen, but Ponder does whip his head around with great velocity. “What?” The large window behind him is made of remarkably un-warped glass, very nice, but it’s also backlighting him such that Rincewind can’t see his expression.

Rincewind re-cracks open the door from where he’d slammed it shut. “It’s Rincewind,” he repeats.

“I know, but why?” Ponder’s put his pen down now, and his hand is flapping in the air half-heartedly. 

Rincewind’s not sure he knows the answer. “I was… worried?” he tries. 

Ponder looks at him like he’s grown three heads. Rincewind checks his shoulders hurriedly, but he remains single-skulled. 

“You seemed tired,” Rincewind continues, emboldened by the knowledge that Ponder does not seem angry yet. “And I stopped seeing you, so I wanted to…” and this is where his argument runs dry. “...make sure you were alive?”

“Okay,” Ponder says slowly. “I have a lot of work to do.” and Rincewind knows a dismissal when he hears it, is already inching the door shut when Ponder continues, “but you can stay if you want.”

Rincewind cautiously lets himself in at that, settles himself in the chair across the desk from Ponder. He sets the textbook he’d been clutching on the ground. “I can do paperwork if you don’t mind bad handwriting,” he says. The repetition is soothing, as is the knowledge that paperwork can’t bite him.

“Really?” Ponder shoves a pile of paper at him, then a pen. “Take those. You’re a lifesaver.” There’s obvious gratitude in his voice, and it makes something shivery run through Rincewind. His forearms itch. He picks up the pen and gets to work. 

There isn’t that much actual knowledge required to fill any of it out — just a lot of writing the University’s address3 and the date4. It fuzzes into a kind of rhythm, Ponder adjusting his inkwell every so often or scratching his nose and catching Rincewind’s eye. He’s very predictable, and he doesn’t make too many sudden movements, which really facilitates Rincewind’s concentration. 

The sun sinks slowly behind the mountains until it’s getting hard to make out the letters on the requisition form Rincewind’s filling out. 

“We should get dinner,” Ponder says suddenly, cracking the silence.

Rincewind flinches. He’s standing up and he’s not sure when he told his body to do that. “Sounds great,” he says, after the hit of adrenalin subsides. “The mess hall shouldn’t be too full yet.”

“I was thinking we would go to a restaurant, actually,” Ponder says. His voice sounds a little strained, and his hands are fluttering again.

“Oh,” Rincewind says. “Alright, then. The two of us, at dinner, together, alone, am I right?”

“Yes,” says Ponder. His eyes are wide. 

“And this isn’t an assassination attempt or anything?” Rincewind asks suspiciously. “Or a… or your plot to make me visit some other continent filled with poisonous bugs?”

Ponder is looking vaguely terrified at this point. “Never mind,” he says. He takes off his glasses like he wants to polish them, but there’s nothing to hand. 

“Okay,” Rincewind says. He vaguely and desperately wants that look to be off Ponder’s face, but he has no idea how to do it. Ponder keeps looking sad, and then he sits back down at his desk. 

Rincewind flees. He looks back at the door as he’s leaving. The troll on Ponder’s door looks like it’s glaring at him.

It isn’t until he’s back at his quarters that it occurs to him that perhaps Ponder had a different ulterior motive for asking him to dinner. Like a… date, perhaps.

Rincewind’s not sure if wizards can date, but Ponder’s a wizard, and there’s clearly nothing stopping him, so it can’t be impossible. Surely. And if it would take that look off Ponder’s face… well, maybe. He pulls the covers over his face. It might be nice to. To date someone.

The reality that this is Rincewind’s life comes rushing back to him, and he smacks himself on the forehead (through the blanket, unfortunately, making it much less effective). Ponder wouldn’t be asking Rincewind out because it would be _good_ , and good things don’t happen to Rincewind. It’d be like asking the sun to shine dark.

Rincewind rolls over and tumbles off the cliff of wakefulness into the spiky pit of sleep.

* * *

At least Ponder doesn’t disappear after that. It would be appropriate — he’s a spot of joy in Rincewind’s life, which obviously means that he has to start hating Rincewind soon, or be secretly prejudiced against wizards, or get eaten by the pack of feral dogs that roams Ankh-Morpork’s meat-packing district. But it’s not like Ponder really ever talks to Rincewind either. Quite the opposite, honestly: he turns a pale burgundy every time they make eye contact and usually attempts to run the other way. It reminds Rincewind of himself.

It also disinclines Rincewind to chase after him. He has unpleasant memories of being chased by just about every violent creature upon the Disc and chasing someone really isn’t in his nature. Although he may miss Ponder, slightly, still. A disregardable amount. It’s all for the better. 

He’s begun to reconcile himself to the prospect of a Ponder-less life over kippers and toast and a large mushroom when Ponder suddenly appears behind his shoulder. Rincewind squirts tea out of his nose. 

“Hello, Rincewind!” Ponder says, as though Rincewind hasn’t now progressed to coughing up tea-flavored mucus. His face is rather red, but he doesn’t seem angry or likely to pull out his wand.

“Hello, Ponder,” Rincewind croaks.

“It came to my attention that I may not have been very clear the last time we spoke,” says Ponder. “I’d like to —” his voice stutters briefly to a stop. “—to ask you on a date.”

Rincewind spits out his tea for the second time. “Really?”

Ponder draws himself up like an offended cat. “Well, well if you don’t want to then…”

“No! No I want to,” Rincewind cuts him off. “I’m just… surprised.”

“Good surprised?” Ponder’s chest is slowly un-puffing out. His face is attempting to return to its normal color but it’s not quite succeeding.

“Yes,” says Rincewind. “Yes, very good surprised.” He takes a bite of his kippers, makes sure to swallow quickly in case Ponder has any more Disc shattering revelations. “Tonight?”

“Does tomorrow work alright?”

Rincewind thinks about it for a second. He doesn’t have much to do except file rocks, and if the rocks mind the wait then Rincewind can give them a firm talking-to. “Tomorrow works great,” he says, the winces because now he’s jinxed it.

“I’ll see you then!” says Ponder. “I must get going, though! Lots to do!” 

For an idle second, Rincewind wonders if Ponder’s aware he’s speaking in exclamation points, but then he’s faced with Ponder’s retreating back and the thought vanishes. “Bye,” he says. It doesn’t seem like Ponder hears him.

With a sigh, Rincewind turns back to his plate. This is all going to go horribly wrong somehow.

* * *

Most of the next day passes quietly. Rincewind suspects it’s to lull him into a false sense of security. Just in case, he packs his good stick for hitting people over the head with when he heads down to the gates to meet Ponder.

Ponder is, of course, several minutes early. Rincewind shows up almost right on time5, which is just when Old Tom is ringing and making it so Rincewind can’t hear the next words out of Ponder’s mouth. Or his own mouth.

“— — — —!” says Ponder. Rincewind considers it unlikely that he’s being cursed out, but the sound is remarkably similar.

“— — —!” he yells back. Ponder shakes his head, then grabs on to Rincewind’s sleeve and pulls him down the street until the bell stops ringing. For one delightful moment, Rincewind lets himself pretend that Old Tom ringing was the thing that would inevitably go wrong tonight. 

The delight sours when they turn the corner and find a traffic riot being corralled by two watchmen — watchbeings, Rincewind supposes, given that one of them is the watch’s troll and the other is a woman. 

“Oh dear,” says Ponder. He points a finger at a storefront with two broken windows and two dwarfs cowering inside. “That’s the restaurant I was intending to go to.”

“We can find somewhere else,” Rincewind says —

— and then the sky falls apart. A plume of smoke bursts forth, followed by a gout of flame, and then Rincewind registers that he’s seeing a dragon screech and flap above them.

His legs move without thought. It’s a good thing that Ponder’s still clutching on to him, because it means that Ponder is dragged along too. It’d be a shame if Rincewind had to plunge back into danger to get him. Rincewind thinks wistfully of his more innocent days thirty minutes ago, when he thought that the universe would give him something that could be defeated by hitting it over the head with a stick. He and Ponder look to be almost a mile away from the main commotion, but there’s always room for being another mile away from a _live dragon_.

“I— thought— you— were— exaggerating— your— luck—” Ponder gasps out between heaving breaths. Rincewind forgets occasionally that he runs more than the average Ankh-Morporkian, and certainly more than the average wizard.

“I wish,” he says, quickly so as to conserve oxygen.

“How— do— you— do— this— all— day—” Ponder looks worryingly like he’s about to start hyperventilating.

“Practice, mostly,” Rincewind says. He pushes Ponder off into an alley and forces his sprint to be a jog until he can make his legs stop moving and circle back. “You can breathe, right?” His legs are starting to jog in place again and he glares at them until they quit it.

Ponder’s hands are on his knees and he’s coughing. “Mostly.” Rincewind shoots out a hand to keep his hat on his head after a particularly vicious hack. It’s at least ten minutes of standing awkwardly in a dingy alley before Ponder’s breathing smoothes out again and he stands up straight. “We should maybe try this date thing again.”

Rincewind isn’t proud of the disbelieving squawk he makes at that. “Why?” he asks. It’s a little more open than he likes, a little more self-aware. 

“Because this one was interrupted by a dragon,” Ponder says like he thinks Rincewind is being stupid.

“They’re all going to be like this,” Rincewind says helplessly. “You know my luck. Every date we go on is going to be — today it’s dragons, and tomorrow it’ll be… I don’t know, giant snails. Wizard-eating vines.”

Ponder shrugs. “So we’ll try again tomorrow and see what it is.”

Rincewind suppresses the urge to seize Ponder by the shoulders and shake him back and forth. He settles for scratching a hand violently through his beard. “I’m not worth it!”

That makes Ponders’ eyes big and sad. “You’re worth it to me,” he says.

“You can’t mean that,” Rincewind says. He curses in Omnian, and then in Klatchian because Omnian doesn’t feel strong enough. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” Ponder says. “And we’ll go on as many dates as it takes for one of them to work.”

“Okay,” says Rincewind, voice wobbly. “As many as it takes.”

* * *

* * *

Rincewind spends a lot of time in Ponder’s office these months. He’s unfortunately finished filing all the rocks 6 and has had to start conducting official research. Luckily, there are quite enough interesting geological phenomena just outside the university to keep Rincewind from traveling. The Luggage is getting along famously with the decayed skeleton of a raccoon Rincewind unearthed which seems to have developed primitive consciousness.

Ponder looks up from the papers in front of him, something budget-y this time. Rincewind accepted long ago that he will never understand math, and he views it as something of a positive that he has a boyfriend to understand it for him. “You should write about all the places you’ve been,” Ponder says, like he’s been mulling it over for a while.

“What, like my memoirs?” Rincewind says. He scratches out another note about the rock in front of him, a cobblestone chipped from the Misbegot Bridge. It’s giving off a distinct air of menace. 

“I was thinking like a traveller’s guide,” says Ponder. “You could help all the other travellers who want to go to the Agatean Empire or— or Fourecks.”

“If they want to go to Fourecks they should be left to face the consequences of their decision,” Rincewind says. Ponder laughs at that and it’s such a good sound. He hadn’t realized how rarely he heard it before.

It may all be a waiting game for Fate (or the Lady, most likely) to cruelly rip Ponder away from him, but in the meantime Rincewind is content to enjoy himself. The barkeep at the nameless bar knows both their orders and both of them by name now, and Rincewind knows that she speaks all but one of the languages posted outside. Actually…

“I should write a phrasebook,” Rincewind says. “How to say ‘aaaaaaaaah’ in every language. And call for help. The important things.”

“You could interview people who speak different languages and ask them,” Ponder says. “Oh! I’m sure HEX could help.”

Rincewind has abandoned the menacing rock in favor of searching around for some blank paper. Ponder flings a piece haphazardly at him, and Rincewind catches it out of the air. He starts scribbling furiously. “We’ll have to organize the languages by number of speakers,” he mumbles half to himself. 

“Which means demographic data,” Ponder says. “I wonder if Vetinari has anything…”

“Hold on one second,” Rincewind says. He puts his pen down. “Is this going to be a Project? Those never end well.”

Curse Ponder for getting so good at pleading expressions. “A small one?”

Rincewind squints at Ponder. “I’ll think about it.”

“You already know half the languages anyway,” Ponder says. “It’d hardly be any more work.”

“ _I’ll think about it_ ,” Rincewind says. “Now do your work. The Bursar’s pills won’t pay for themselves.”

“You know, the University’s finances have really been—”

“I know you hate budgeting, but it still needs to be done,” says Rincewind. “We’ll go out for cake later.”

Ponder’s face brightens, and he sets his pen back down on the paper. “I’m holding you to that,” he says. The room falls into contented productivity as Rincewind examines the rock (it does not get less menacing on further inspection) and Ponder mumbles figures. Eventually, Rincewind’s marked down all the salient details of the rock and his vague hypotheses of where it’s from and why it’s threatening.

Ponder is liable to get so absorbed in his work that he forgets the passage of time, so when it looks like he’s near the end of the page, Rincewind clears his throat. 

“Is it noon already?” Ponder asks.

There’s no clock in Ponder’s office, but the sun outside looks closer to two or three p.m. “A little later than that,” Rincewind says. “Maybe if we just nip out and back we can get cake before Fate realizes that our afternoon needs to be ruined.”

They do end up getting rained on, and it’s definitely closer to acid than it is to actual water, but they also make it back to Ponder’s quarters with several egg buns and a slice of cake for Ponder. They eat sitting side-by-side, Ponder explaining between bites about the new train station being installed in Lancre. 

Probably Rincewind won’t have this — Ponder, food, a place to call his — forever. But in the meantime he’s not going to run away from it.

* * *

1: _River Damage_ by Ulysses “Swampland” Pants. Back

2: Subjunctive, conjunctive, and apprehensive. Back

3: “Unseen University, big bilding with the tauwers, can’t miss it." Back

4: “not sure, fore it changes evry day. year of the astounded beetle, likely.” Back

5: Fourteen minutes late, to throw off the assassin trailing him. Back

6: Two thousand three hundred and eight of them, not including fossils, bones, or objects that strongly resemble rocks but are, in fact, bits of troll. Back

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments and kudos make me happy + productive?
> 
> also i promise that i did not make the monster in the beginning a huje green thing with teeth intentionally. it was entirely serendipitous and then i liked it too much to change it. that's in fact the story behind a great handful of the jokes in here, although most of them are in their second or third incarnations (a fact which you all should be grateful for. if you didn't find them funny now, imagine how terrible they used to be)


End file.
